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Characters:Lewis Aaron, Jean GreyRated: PGSummary:Savith and Phoenix have a tense meeting in the wake of the former's unexpected presence during an X-Mission.OOC Date: February 25th 2018IC Date: February 25th 2018Where: Brooklyn - New York

SOME TIME AGO

~We should probably talk,~ pops into Savith's mind one day. ~Face to face. Soon. The boy, Rafael, he's fine, he's at home; they all are. Are /you/ okay? I— saw you, for a second. Didn't mean to let you fall, but…~

Phoenix briefly halts after an echo of that morning's terror sneaks into the impromptu psi-comm.

~… anyway. I'm sorry, and we should talk; where do you want to meet?~

NOW

After screeching into a parking space with seconds to spare, Jean races away from a vehicle with a rideshare sticker on the windshield as fire briskly burns a coat and long skirt away. Once she's wearing shimmery green and gold, she takes off so she can— loop around, then make her way towards the rendezvous point, as if she's just flown in from wherever she's from.

The mental touch brushed the elf's mind as he was in his studio, recording some melodies that had haunted him the past few days. He splits his mind's attention to carry on that conversation as he works, assuring this voice Jean that he is well enough. Date time and location given, the elf finishes his recording.

The place was chosen for its queit ambiance. The rooftop so he could get up and feel the winds pull on him. He hadn't Flew as he had that day in Mexico since… Memories have faded and as this Jean flies in, Savith pulls himself back from his thoughts.

"No," says Phoenix, descending into a gentle landing a few feet in front of Savith. "Not at all." The guy who made her wait almost ten minutes to pick him up before this, /he/ inconvenienced her; this, of course, goes unsaid.

"Are you alright?" she repeats aloud as green eyes carefully scan for obvious tells of nagging wounds, having seen more than their share by now. "Considering everything."

Savith was lucky. He got away without any physical wounds. Just mental ones, but those are things he remembers having dealt with before. He learned long ago, even if details are fuzzy, how to put his mind back to rights after having it ripped open, his fears laid bare.

"I'm fine," he says smoothly, letting her verbal speech be the reason he too stopped sending his thoughts and instead what might be closer to the real reason of: he can't lie in Send.

"Yourself? It feels like your mind is still reeling."

It can verge on impossible to lie verbally around Phoenix too, but mercifully, she's keeping her mind mostly to herself right now; as long as he doesn't fixate too deeply on the gap between true and false, his secrets are utterly safe.

"I'm fine," she says with casual certainty while meeting his eyes. An opera glove gestures around vaguely near her head. "It's nothing I haven't dealt with before." A soft sigh is pushed out through her nose as her arm falls and her head bobs back and forth a little. "In broad strokes, anyway," she then amends. "Some aches, some psychic feedback; it's fine."

A beat as green eyes briefly close.

"Was it just Rafael who brought you out there that night?" she then asks, quietly.

There is no fixation, and knowing this woman is a telepath and a human to boot, Savith's tucked his thought safely behind his soulname. Rip it from him to get at his thoughts, if you wish.

The elf watches the human, head tilting faintly as a bird of prey would at seeing something that's caught his attention.

"It was," replies the elf, mind still guarded in that way that speaks of having learned to guard himself like this before. There are chinks in this armor of his; he knows. The one who caused them left mental and spiritual scars. He just hopes no one else finds those.

"Are you independent?" Phoenix continues while letting her eyes flick away from his long enough to watch his face, just in case. Even just skimming the surface of his thoughts runs a risk of alerting him, given his enhanced consciousness— which in turn opens the door to him walling himself off and putting her in an extremely undesireable position; old-fashioned lie detection methods will have to suffice for soothing a wary spirit, for now.

Opera gloves loosely fold beneath the raptor sigil on a triangular black field as green eyes narrow appraisingly. "Have you told anyone about what happened that morning?" she wonders in a low, cautious tone. "Are you going to?"

Eye contact? Not something that's happening. She's trying, but he keep dlicking his gaze away from her eyes before they can lock. Side-effect for him is that it could make him seem so very untrust worthy.

"Planning on silencing me if I considered it?" he pushes back, now visibly tense and on edge where he had been lax and calm seeming. He heard the tonal shift,t he wya her voice dropped to the bottom of her register. It felt like the growl of a wolf, warning its displeasure. It put him ill at ease.

A wolf, a bear, a lion, or any of the other myriad of creatures at once capable of protective nurturing and terrible violence on behalf of those they love.

"I wouldn't warn you if I was," she replies. "It wouldn't really be worth the agita, and I don't think you'd need me to." Despite the wary register, she delivers these notes in an even-keeled voice; they're basic observations derived from her existence as a career vigilante, given without even the hint of a threatening edge.

"No." She keeps trying periodically, to meet his eyes, her own getting narrower over time as she continues to fail. "Suggest reconsidering, more like." A few red locks shift over her cheek as her head cants curiously. "Am I gonna have to pitch you, here, or what?" she presses.

"You have no control over me," Savith states coldly, turning away from Jean. The way she keeps trying to meet his gaze unnerves the elf far more than her threats and her growling voice.

"You can try whatever you wish, human. I keep to my own council on such matters as what I wish to disclose and to whom," he snips back, focusing much more of his mind now on keeping his thoughts tucked away behind his Soulname. At his sides, his four-fingered hands curl into fists.

"I'm not your enemy, Savith," Phoenix quietly reminds as her eyes continue narrowing, now on the back of an elvish head, "but you're kind of making me wonder if the feeling's mutual, not gonna lie."

Arms still tucked against her chest, she takes a step towards him while red locks gently brush themselves out of her face. "We were there for the same thing, but - and, I see the ears, and hear you calling me 'human', so maybe you don't fully appreciate why I'm concerned - people don't look all that kindly on mutant vigilantes who accidentally instigate hurricanes in the middle of February while having pitched battles against human gangs in foreign countries," she rattles off. Somewhere in the midst of that, she dares another step forward.

"Generally. I don't feel like wanting to head off SHIELD, or whoever else poking around my business for helping people in need makes me unreasonable, but maybe I'm wrong."

"I actively avoid having enemies," Savith retorts softly, lips barely moving with the sound of his words. His face turns back over his shoulder slightly, just enough for him to spot her drawing closer out of the corner of his eyes. He is no longer bringing his gaze up toward her face, unwilling it seems to risk their gazes meeting.

"I know how humans attack and hurt and hunt that which they fear. I know far too well that they fear that which they do not know, and so you are not being unreasonable. That you seem to think I will Fly to them and offer the feel of your location… I will chalk up to your own fears of what I am. This isn't anything new," he says, some of the tension fading and hsi words making him sound almost every day of his many millenia of years.

"You're a person I never met before he happened to be right next to my jet, not even ten minutes before my mission went to hell, and I— "

Phoenix's professional veneer slips just enough to let a quaver of fear - cold and disorienting in contrast to what motivated her wary inquisition - into her voice at those last two words, which prompts her to stop and swallow whatever else might've fallen out.

"I don't care what else you are. My best friend was maybe the fourth super-villain I ever fought, and she's dating an extra-dimensional wizard— I do not care about your ears. I care that I don't know you, and - good intentions or /not/ - I have no idea where your head might be after what you experienced, and every reason to worry that it could go to a place that hurts the people I love."

Stepping a little nearer, she dares to reach for his shoulder, meaning to gently rest her hand against it when she softly concludes, "I don't think we're as different as you seem to think we are."

It's a trust issue. It's always been a trust issue. Although faces and names have been swept away by time, Savith knows that he had always been distrusted. The cries of the children that had overlapped his thoughts during that psychic attack was a twist of a knife reminder that he himself was the cause for much of that distrust.

Who would distrust a child murderer?

"Perhaps," he replies softly at the touch to his shoulder. "I know what it's like to lose those closest to you. I have no reason to speak of what happened in Mexico, and no one I trust enough to speak to it about besides. Rest easy." He knows it wasn't Sent, but it doesn't make it any less true. Nor does it lessen the seriousness of his quiet tone.

"And nobody but my team knows about you, at least as far as I know," Phoenix offers in turn as her hand settles in to squeeze. "All the news is fixated on the hurricane and the narco-angle, since, you kn— oh. Yeah, okay, maybe you don't, but— suffice it to say, our asses should be pretty well covered."

After lowering her hand so she can tuck her arm back in against herself, she adds, "We didn't get off on the best foot, I realize, but I know you did a good thing: Rafael's strong for his age, and I honestly don't know what taking that— thing, that weapon full-force, without you there to block for him would've done. Nothing good. If you ever need any help yourself…"

A couple inches of her sash goes up in a sudden flare and a puff of white smoke. Once the tiny fire that appears simultaneously near her rib cage goes out, she offers him a hand containing a little white card with a phone number neatly written on it.

"You can try the other thing, too, but I dunno your range, so…"

"Nothing good," Savith agrees. He knows what it felt like, enduring and shielding, and what the child was going through. The mental damage he sustained he would happily take again if that child needed it. The elf turns to look at the card, and he collects it with slim fingers. He glances at the number before tucking it into the pocket of his jacket while turning back to face Jean. His face comes up but his gaze remains ellusive.

"I'm still not sure how, as a human, you can even Send as I do, but I'm not going to question it fully. I could try, but range is a concern, as you said. This?" hints at card "will suffice for now."

"See if you can find Professor Charles Xavier's TED Talk," Phoenix suggests of her mentor's exploration of the broad nature of mutanity and what it could mean for the future - as seen from 2010, anyway - with a small smile. "It won't explain a ton, but it'll give you an idea." She doesn't try meeting his gaze again, given how obvious it is that he's trying to avoid it. Empty hand raised in a wave, she begins to lift off of the roof while adding, "Thank you for putting my mind at ease, I appreciate it. Hopefully, we can do this again sometime with less tension and hurricane-neglect." Beat.